Romain Grosjean suspects Haas dip in form down to tyres

Romain Grosjean believes Haas’ drop in pace during the Bahrain Grand Prix was down to its tyre use, after its strong one-lap pace disappeared.

Grosjean was handed a grid penalty and retired in the wake of a first-lap collision but team-mate Kevin Magnussen qualified sixth, just 0.005s behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

However in race trim Magnussen plummeted down the order and trailed home 13th, as Haas put in a lacklustre display.

Grosjean, who has been with Haas since its foundation in 2016, reckons the manner in which the VF-19 used its rubber was to blame; it has been a weakness for the team in previous years.

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“Bahrain wasn’t our best showing in terms of race pace,” said Grosjean.

“Unfortunately, that was the feeling I had from the Friday of the weekend. We didn’t quite manage to get on top of it. Saying that, I didn’t do much of the race, so it’s hard to judge if what we had done on my car was good enough.

“I think China’s going to be great. It’s a very different circuit. I think we’ve got some good tools to get ready for China and our testing in Bahrain has been another good opportunity to learn a bit more about what happened in the race there.

“It has to be tyre-usage related because the car is the same as we had in Melbourne and in pre-season testing, where we were fast and we were fast again in qualifying in Bahrain.

“We’ve got the downforce and we’ve got the balance, we just need a little bit more cooperation on the tyres. If we can process the information from testing, we should be fine for the race.”

Haas currently holds sixth position in the Constructors’ Championship, albeit just two points behind lead midfield team Alfa Romeo.